The Need For Rationality
In contrast to a previously held Extra Mural Lecture about ‘Vedic Sciences’, on Wednesday (23th January), the EML team organized a lecture on the ‘Need for rational thinking’. The speaker was Mr. Narendra Nayak, a medical biologist by profession and a well known rationalist who had worked for 28 years as a teacher of biochemistry at Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore. He also happens to be the current president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, an apex body of more than 65 atheist, rationalist and humanist groups in India and a member of Folks Magazine’s Editorial Board.
Mr. Nayak, over the years, has traveled to many villages and towns across the world to debunk superstitions and expose ‘godmen’ who exploit people. Through the lecture, he tried to bring some of these claims to the forefront and clearly indicate the difference between science and pseudo-science. He spoke about ’so-called religious miracles’ and also debunked the ‘myth of homeopathic medicine’. He claimed that almost every religious ‘miracle’ was a trick in disguise, and that he was not against people practicing religion, but against the use of it to promote superstition.
“As the largest scientific manpower on earth, are we doing enough to reach out to people?” he asked the gathered students. He remarked about the top brass of various scientific institutions in India praising these ’so-called godmen’ and their rituals, and called for such things to be stopped.
The lecture itself was quite captivating, and had the audience of around 300 very involved. However, it took an even more interesting turn towards the end, when the Dean of Students, Prof. L.S.Ganesh was called upon stage to hand over a memento to the speaker. Prof. Ganesh had objections to the Mr. Nayak’s claims about Satya Sai Baba and said that he (and another professor) had visited the late guru once and witnessed firsthand the creation of a ring within his palm, from thin air. In reaction to this, the speaker himself recreated the same trick on stage in an attempt to demonstrate its falsity, amidst some laughter from the crowd. Prof. Ganesh also claimed to believe in the power of homeopathic medicine and recalled examples wherein two german shepherds and a 2-month-old baby had been cured by it. “Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence,” said Prof. Ganesh. “Just because there is no evidence of the existence of something, you cannot debunk it. It is human arrogance to think that we know everything,” he went on. At this point, the stipulated time for the lecture was over, and the whole affair was called off, with Prof. Ganesh, the speaker, and a few students still discussing the issue.
A video of the lecture, along with the question-and-answer session towards the end, and Prof. Ganesh’s discussion with the speaker has been uploaded by the EML team :
Addendum on Feb 13th 2013: Prof L S Ganesh, Dean (Students), clarifies his stance with regard to the events that transpired during the lecture.
The report states: “Prof. Ganesh had objections to the Mr. Nayak’s claims about Satya Sai Baba and said that he (and another professor) had visited the late guru once and witnessed firsthand the creation of a ring within his palm, from thin air.”
I did not object to Mr. Nayak’s claims. In fact, Mr. Nayak explained many of these surreptitious acts of “godmen” very effectively and i thoroughly enjoyed his talk. I was very curious about my past, and the only one, interaction I had with SSB (or whatever may be his real name) and wished to learn Mr. Nayak’s explanation of how SSB conjured the trick, which I had pointed out. I wish Mr. Nayak would have given a “rational” explanation by fully reproducing SSB’s conjuring act. Mr. Nayak instead did what he did, viz., did not fully reproduce SSB’s conjuring act. This does not imply that I am SSB’s devotee or supporter, or Mr. Nayak’s opponent or detractor. Perhaps, Mr. Nayak needs to master his “magic” a little more, and i wish him well for the sake of the many who are misled and used by crafty, evil godmen.
“In reaction to this, the speaker himself recreated the same trick on stage in an attempt to demonstrate its falsity, amidst some laughter from the crowd.”
As I’ve pointed out above, the speaker did not recreate the same trick – I wish he would have. How badly can an audience be befuddled? No wonder that SSB’s and Nayak’s revel respectively in their trade and work.
Also, I believe that the number of applauders or the loudness of their applause cannot substitute or imply the truth, in any instance or at any time.
My views on homeopathy: Has been neither proven nor disproven – all the “reviewed papers”, “controlled experiments” and BBC programmes notwithstanding. The debates are on, with each side claiming victories (sic!) and faulting the others. I only recounted instances concerning me, my family members and pets, in which homeopathy worked as a cure, and continues to cure till date. Yes, this is personal and anecdotal, but, what the heck, I need cure and I am getting it, my family members and pets need cure and are getting it – short- and long-term – from homeopathy. Given my experiences with homeopathy, I do not care if it works through the placebo effect or otherwise. If i find that homeopathy does not work in any instance concerning me, i will, obviously, seek a cure through another approach, perhaps ayurveda. Everyone seeks cure – short- and long-term – when they suffer from acute and/or chronic conditions of the body-mind complex. And, about the placebo effect of homeopathy, I remain as skeptic as ever.
In a lighter vein, there was one student who was desperate to intervene, and stated that he was cured of an illness by “not having any food at all”. Of course, the audience laughed. I wish the student well and hope that he will gain short- and long-term cure in all instances of his sickness by “not having any food at all”. “Langanam paramam aushadham”. Everyone needs cure not morbidity.
I do not wish to engage in any personal vilification or indulge in innuendo, and will not continue any further with this thread, which in my opinion includes a few intellectual aliases. Our lives, experiences and “karma” are only ours and cannot belong to anyone else. The last word is yet to be stated on these “conscious” experiences. The QED is yet to be written. I wish everyone – whom I’d refer to as “pieces of consciousness” – peace, fine health, good humour and prosperity. Of course, if anyone wishes to discuss subjects, such as those above, with me, my doors are always open, and I will be as friendly, smiling, truthful and warm as I can be. As i’ve been so far, to the best of my knowledge and consciousness, I wish to remain a humble, curious and sincere student in the school of life as long as this “conscious experience” lasts. Later? Well, who knows?
Response to the addendum:
(Reference: the video attached; skip to 2:01:50)
Dear LSG,
Dude, what was all the shouting and screaming, “Show me your hand, show me your hand” about? Huh?
Was it ONLY to show the audience that ‘Mr. Nayak needs to master his “magic” a little more’? That’s it? Really?
You expect me to buy that?
What about the, “I don’t think this is rational” garbage that you chanted precisely when the lecturer was trying to explain the trick? Because you only, and only wanted to tell the audience that Mr. Nayak does not know all the tricks that Sai Baba did? Really? Are you serious?
Did the lecturer ever claim that he knew all the possible tricks in this world? No, right? He even mentioned that every time he saw a new trick he had to decipher it and then practice for days to perfect the procedure.
And yet, you somehow expected him to know a random trick that you saw?
What was all that smirking and grinning for? Were you there really for that reason?
What exactly was your motive, dude? Huh? Here, I’ll make it easy for you so that you don’t have to lie anymore; just pick an option:
a) To show that this man – the lecturer – does not know all the possible ‘magic’ tricks in the world. (Which Mr. Nayak had already confessed in his lecture, BTW.)
b) To come out victorious in a self created ego war between you and the lecturer.
c) To show that since Mr. Nayak cannot perform all of SSB’s tricks then maybe SSB still has some magic powers contrary to what the lecturer claimed. (”Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” trash)
d) To show that the lecturer is not omniscient and that we should not believe everything that he said but instead listen to you since you proved that he does not know just one specific ‘magic’ trick?
e) All of the above.
f) Some of the above.
g)
None of the above.Why were you so senti (short for ’sentimental’, insti lingo da, – you must have learned something from IIT if not science) da? Why were you so hysterical?
‘Show me your hand’ and ‘I don’t think this is rational’ – what was all this about? To bring home a simple and humble point even though the lecturer had already stated it in his lecture (that he did not know all possible tricks)?
I’m talking only about the first part (if I may call it so) of your time on the stage, keep aside homeopathy, ‘allopathy’, sympathy, apathy crap (yes, I can crack pathy-tic jokes too) for now and just tell me what the hell were you trying to do/prove?
Answer me dude, LSG.
@Common_IITian
Your argument is basically the usual escape route taken when irrationality is pointed out. It might be “impossible” to measure the accurate distance with an arbitrary precision. But does that mean the one crude instrument measuring ~2 and a precise one listing it as 3.141569 are same?
I for one, did not accuse the Prof. of being an irrational person. It doesn’t make much sense to judge whether a person, whatever his/her personal beliefs or convictions are, to be 100% rational or not. You have every right to point out an irrational action or opinion that a rationalist give. But it does make sense to evaluate a particular belief or opinion. In the current context it happens to be the “possibility of miracle” and “homeopathic cure”. Also, in my opinion the idea of God or karma itself is irrational, but that is not our topic.
Now the definition for rationalism that you gave is something I do not agree up on. I do not think any rationalist would agree up on that. It is incorrect or highly biased. I even wonder about the choice of such an obscure source to get the meaning of a very standard word. Was it searching for the answer that you wanted?
Any way, wikipedia says:
"e
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is “any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification”. In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory “in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive”.[2] Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position “that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge” to the more extreme position that reason is “the unique path to knowledge”.
&unquote
Religion is not intution, if anything it is just an imaginative (in a negative way) story that bears evidence of our societal evolution– every single one of them. Complex logical deductions have the best elements of intution. Einstein’s papers in 1905 were intutive, but he could be called a rationalist. He was a diest — someone who considered the posibility of an impersonal God. But that is a far cry from the present day Gods or the “karma theory”. Dawkin’s explanation about the Darwinian reason for the evolution of eyes is intutive. So was Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Tell me where did these “rationalists” fail in being intutive?
On the otherhand if you invoke a skyhook, i.e. a more complex and improbable explanation to explain a less complex event, it is not intution, but absurdity.
@ Javali
My comment was in response to Rationalist who said and I quote
“To be rational, a person needs to have ALL of his actions and thoughts as rational”
Rationalism : “reliance on reason rather than intuition to justify one’s beliefs or actions” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rationalism)
You have agreed yourself that a complete rationalist is someone hypothetical. If the degree to which one can be rational varies from person to person, then there is no authority to fix a certain criteria of who is to be considered rational. If you do create one criteria, then that act in itself is irrational for you impose your version or degree of rationalism on others.
Also the definition calls for a lack of intuition which is stupid considering most of the major scientific breakthroughs were based on intuition, though subsequently proven using scientific arguments.
The limited point I am making from the beginning is, with such a shoddy definition of rationalism, don’t judge someone’s actions as irrational just because you differ with one of their philosophical views (related to existence of God)
@Common_IITian:
All you have done with those words is to give an example for a bad analogy. ‘Rationalism’ is a stance where which one give prominance to evidence and logic. You have no choice but to take that route to determine the “truth of a matter” (at some level). The trust you were refering to is an evolutionary characteristic which serves a totally different purpose; in fact enabled people to survive as a group. The human child is the most powerless as against other comparable species. Thus it needs some amount of “unquestioned following” and “instinctive trust” on grownups among the species, or otherwise it will perish. It is this “trust” that comes to play as spoilsport in situtations where it no longer a meaning. It has nothing to do with other emotions like compassion (which have different Darwinian purposes). All our emotions might have a Darwinian purpose, like a memory which enabled to overcome certain adverse situations while walking through the evolutionary road. What we should strive is to become more reasonable. It is not achived by mixing emotions with rational thoughts, but understanding what they are and keeping them sperated as best as one can. Many a self proclaimed rationalists could act highly irrational. But in the given situation, it was our Prof. who made an absolutely unscientific statement. His premise and conclusions both, were flawed. Period.
A person of “pure reason” is a stereotype, just like a “complete fool” is. What you have done is to conflate the issue with a stereotype of a “pure rationalist” and “some imaginative 50-50 mix”. It is a story which is intended to deliver a message that the author wanted. And anecdote based argument is just as much a logical fallacy as any other. It might appeal to the emotions, but that doesn’t make it any true.
The entire world runs on some form of trust or belief. It is impossible to reason every act in life without belief or trust in someone/something.
For example, I trust (or I believe) in a doctor when I go in for surgery. I trust that the doctor knows which medicine he needs to give me, for I cannot reason and go through every research paper on every drug out there. I cant major in every field like science, law, medicine, economics to reason and act in every step of life.
If a person doesn’t trust in his wife he can never leave his home
Even when you give money to someone, its actually a promise to pay them the money and not actual credit. All this is not possible without belief or trust. If everyone in the world starts thinking along the lines of ‘no belief’ then it would no doubt descent into anarchy.
There have always been people like Will Hunting, who have believed in only logic without any trust. And there have always been people like Sean(Robin William’s character) who valued emotion, experience and trust in addition to logic and we all know what happens at the end of the movie.
Hence dismissing any form of belief or trust as irrational is an irrational argument in itself. However if your counter is that partial belief and trust are allowed for rationalists, only belief in God is not allowed then you might as well call yourselves ‘atheist rationalists’ so as to avoid any arguments based on semantics.
@Rationalist:
What seemed ironic to me was that the speaker was himself acting like a “cheap magician”, relying on timing to invigorate the audience further and establish his point. That when LSG was trying to explain the circumstances under which he had observed whatever he did. It just seemed an insulting thing to do, considering the explanation being given.
I never claim that all of Ramanujan’s statements are valid (some of them have been proven to be wrong as well). But what I am trying to convey is that in a philosophical question such as the existence of god for which there is no evidence for either stance, I would not readily discard his word compared to that of a layperson’s.
What you talk about is a very Utopian idea, one which doesn’t apply in our world of the highest so called “rationalists”. You could read up the introductory paragraphs of the Wikipedia page on Georg Cantor (one of many cases) to understand what I am talking about. I am sure that there have been instances of the converse too.
And someone seems to have quoted an unknown person on a philosophy of life. I would just like to point out that there are quotes for every stance, if you’d list all such quotes in a logic set, you could definitely prove the inconsistency of the set, so there’s no point in quoting such stuff anyway.
There is no such “pathy” as allopathy. It was just a name used by Sammuel Hahnemann to describe the nascent ‘modern medicine’. Allo being the “other”. The fundamental theory behind this so-called alternative medicine has been disproved long back. I mean would any of justify how could dilution increase potency or ‘like cures like’?
Medicine is a field where there is more than a theory at work. The exerience and expertice of the physician is definitely more important at the diagnosis stage. There is an unhealthy competition in the drug industry, there are greedy doctors and hospitals– all agreed. But there is no evidence of any sort that Homeopathy works save your belief that it does! In fact, most people are ‘over treated’ and many common diseases need no cure other than good food and some rest. I would wish you good luck (and my deepest condolenses) if you choose Homeopathy of ‘modern medicine’ for any serious illness. The single biggest factor responsible for increasing human life span is the ‘modern medicine’, which is evidence based. We still have many things unknown, but that is not saying any stupidity is possible.
“What do perfect rationalist have to say about present ecology concerns caused by such rational scientific pursuits?” — Are you sure that the biggest ecology concern causing industries are run by “rationalists”?
“When I say mother nature, it is said to be irrational!”– You are not irrational for saying that, just poetic. But if you say that we need to abandon or be skeptical about technology to save “mother earth”, you are in deed being one. First of all, as George Palin said: “Earth is just fine, it is we who are screwed”. Our earth is just a pale blue dot, a speck of dust, a hardly distinguishable pixel, in the vast ‘cosmic ocean of cosmos’ and it is not the human centric “grand religions” in the world which says so, but science. The need to protect it arise from the fact that it is our only known home and we have no reason to expect help from outside. Yet, if you are so concerned about the impact of “rationalist pursuit of science & technology” (whatever hell is that!), you are welcome to be be a hermit; perhaps move to Himalaya and meditate, although I do not think that it is going to help earth.
Where does the legitimacy of evidence come from, when we talk of evidence based rationalism? A scientifically proven research paper, a recognized lab, scientist, or a government saying so?
What do perfect rationalist have to say about present ecology concerns caused by such rational scientific pursuits?
When I say mother nature, it is said to be irrational!
Rationalist (so called perfect) seem to buy their argument by exposing few god-men practicing tricks and be-fooling people, hence demeaning the whole knowledge system that they follow.
With the same argument, I should disbelieve all related knowledge imparted to fraudulent professional lawyers, allopathy doctors, engineers etc. who be-fool people in the name of science to make money!
@Common IITian
Just because some people cannot find supernatural arguments for natural processes convincing doesn’t mean they all have to have the same opinion on every single matter. I would not be surprised however to find a high degree of correlation in opinions among people who lean towards an evidence based lifestyle just as I would not be surprised to find people believing godmen also believing in homeopathy. After all faith is – by definition – believing in something without evidence.
Atheism is just a position that one takes with regards to a single question concerning the existence of god. It is neither a defining characteristic nor something they base their lives on unlike organized religion.
To quote someone, keeping one’s mind open to ideas is well and good but one should not be so open that their brains fall out.
@TruthfulLiar:
“but what that speaker did with the ring was in euphemistic terms, only a cheap publicity stunt.” — NO. What he did was, showed how people can be fooled by such cheap publicity stunts. The intention was to show that these tricks do not need supernatural abilities to be performed. The speaker was not intending to have a babadom and a few followers by showing the “ring trick”.
If Srinivasan Ramanujan, or any one for that matter proposes a few true statement, doesn’t necessarily mean that all subsequent statements made by him can be accepted without verification. The Scientific community doesn’t care how great or intelligent a person is, what it is concerned about is whether the statement under purview is valid.
For that matter, it is the beauty of science. You can have a very intelligent person saying something delusional and still not be taken seriously. If you are opposing this tenet, then it’s not Science you are talking of it’s “authoritarianism”.
@Common_IITian:
All atheists are not rationalists. I never disagreed to this. You can be an atheist, and still can have hundreds of irrational notions.
Hence, the set of atheists is NOT a subset of rationalists.
Accepting something on BELIEF is what religion does. Hence, discounting the possibility of a religious rationalist. To clarify, when I say this I am interpreting religion from my understanding(which happens to be the commonly accepted definition). If you have an alternate interpretation for the term, that allows a religion to be based solely on evidence and logic, I have no problem accepting that follower of such a religion can be rational at the same time.
@ Rationalist
(This is with reference to your reply to @biologist)
“When my Govt. uses my money for promoting something which is proven to be a false claim, as a tax payer should I not question my Government???” – yes you can do that. Being that responsible citizen you are, why don’t you also talk against people from IIT going to non-core jobs? Afterall the tax payer’s money is spent on “technical” education in IIT too.
“But if you are trying to say that most of the people agreed to the point of view of the speaker without giving enough free thought, I am not sure how you collected your evidence.” – I never said that. If you are trying to say Twilight is a good book then you need to collect evidence (WTH rite, I had the same feeling after I read your comment.)
What I was trying to debunk was and I am quoting from my answer :
“saying that someone has “rationalist” thought if and only if they agree with whatever that guy(NN) said is totally high-handed”
Truthful Liar has also put in some good explanations, so do consider reading that.
@ Rationalist
Again I say the same thing, “I believe in God, not necessarily man says of God”
(Hence by default, your interpretation of God. My understanding of God is purely through my intellectual and philosophical pursuits and It is my belief that everyone should discover the spirituality on their own and nothing be imposed on them)
If you say that disbelief is God is a precondition for being a rationalist then it is a very high handed comment. You have a word ‘atheist’ for that which you may use, not rationalist.
To put it extremely uncontroversial, in mathematical terms.
Atheist is a subset of rationalist
(broadly speaking, again I know of atheists who believe that wearing a particular shirt to exams would bring them luck and better grades – but I shall leave out a small set of exceptions)
Superstitious is a Subset of religious
Superstitious intersection rationalist = 0
Religious intersection rationalist is not 0.
Where people generally make the mistake is to assume that superstitious = religious, which was what I was trying to debunk the whole time.
For references on rationalism (intellectual and philosophical) in Sanathana Dharma please go to Quora where there are some beautifully written answers along with links and references.
@Common_IITian:
“Belief in a higher entity is not irrational in my opinion.”- When you subject “belief” and “opinion” to rationality, I don’t know what you are speaking of.
Have you come across the famous Russel’s tea pot argument? If I say that there is a China clay made tea pot exactly at same distance from earth and Jupiter(or between two planetary bodies), by our current understanding it is not provable and not disprovable. So, in the framework of temporal logic, is it open to interpretation?
However, I would digress here to point a factual error in one of your comments. Higgs Boson was predicted almost 50 years ago. Hence, I am not sure it would be laughed at by a sufficiently qualified audience 10 years back. (But the argument still stands correct. The fallacy pops in when it is true that homeopathy is proven to be false.)
@Common_IITian:
(This is with reference to your reply to @biologist)
Ok, let homeopathy be a false claim. Even then it doesn’t give someone the license to comment on anything under the Sun under the guise of a “rationalist” thought — When my Govt. uses my money for promoting something which is proven to be a false claim, as a tax payer should I not question my Government???
Completely agreed when you say that a rationalist doesn’t have to agree with the point of view of another rationalist. But if you are trying to say that most of the people agreed to the point of view of the speaker without giving enough free thought, I am not sure how you collected your evidence.
Sadly, you were not a completely impartial observer making logical comments throughout this whole thread.
Quoting you, Work with an open mind and either prove it or disprove it to end the matter then and there, if you (refers to whoever is in some field where they can do research on homeopathy) can’t find the time or need to do the required research then you have absolutely NO right to debunk it.
Though, I would not say that this statement was illogical, it is evident that you started out with false set of axioms(that homeopathy is not disproved). Hence, the conclusions you derive from this by applying sound logic are not necessarily true.
I feel that people tend to accept the speaker’s words more readily because he is supposed to be a rationalist. I mean, what can be more cool that to be thought rational (the very same junta in the audience will be seen doing a dozen rational things in their daily lives). However, as LSG points out towards the end, not everything is discerned by the human mind. If everything were so rational, why in the world have so many scientific theories been doubted (even worse, debunked) time and again? When Srinivasa Ramanujam was asked where he got his ideas from, he attributed them to the goddess Namagiri of Namakkal. Well, you could argue that he had been brainwashed by society to believe in god, but since he was not a stupid man (more likely, more intelligent than you are), you cannot discount his version just like that.
You could read millions of rational debates about both sides of the coin on whether God exists or not, but what that speaker did with the ring was in euphemistic terms, only a cheap publicity stunt. Even statistically speaking, we incorporate white noise in our models for systems, acknowledging that we can’t predict the process completely. As someone points out earlier, the speaker speaks as if he can rationalize anything under the sun and it is this, I believe, that sparked LSG’s comment. What LSG asks for is just to keep an open mind about things, he agreed that whatever he has experienced could just be his own realization, and one cannot prove with certainty that he is wrong. Of course, one could say that it is improbable, but one has to keep in mind that it doesn’t translate to impossible.
Finally, paraphrasing one of Godel’s incompleteness theorems, it is not possible to prove both consistence and completeness. Some people prefer to be definitely consistent and others prefer to be complete, it’s just the axiom of choice.
Note: Please add the ” ” wherever necessary.
@ Biologist
That is your understanding of the statistics, sadly not what the study says. However, I intend to leave it at that for I have no interest in defending homeopathy due to reasons I have stated very explicitly.
‘completely impartial observer making logical comments’ – That has been my stand the whole time, you can browse through my comments.
Ok, let homeopathy be a false claim. Even then it doesn’t give someone the license to comment on anything under the Sun under the guise of a “rationalist” thought – which was the point I was trying to highlight.
In other words, saying that someone has “rationalist” thought if and only if they agree with whatever that guy said is totally high-handed because the very idea of rationalist is someone who is open to ideas and debates and constantly toils to find the truth.
@ Rationalist :
I have typed enough on homeopathy and I don’t want to go through that exercise again. I still stick by my original comments.
“To be rational, a person needs to have ALL of his actions and thoughts as rational” – yes, and I do believe that works in my case.
“rational religion” – many schools of Sanatana Dharma have preaching along this line, and in such levels the Sanskrit word gets lost in translation (It sadly does not mean the term religion as defined in English, as it was formulated to refer to Abrahamic traditions).
Belief in a higher entity is not irrational in my opinion, only various traditions/rituals are irrational. Again coming back to the argument of proofs, it is well established that God can neither be proved no disproved and hence is open to interpretation. However what you can question is the validity or sanity of some rituals/customs or self proclaimed God-men and on those issues I stand by rationalist sentiments.
Quoting a phrase I read somewhere, “I believe in God, not necessarily everything man says about God”
@Common_IITian, I think we can say that 28% isn’t a very good margin over no treatment at all. We can probably allude that margin to the ‘placebo’ effect. Also, while arguing, please don’t distance yourself from the argument and pretend to be a ‘completely impartial observer making logical comments’ by claiming ‘I am no fan of homeopathy and I frankly dont care if it is true or not.’
The speaker has every right to say that homeopathy is a myth because there is no conclusive proof of it working at all. For that matter, my theory about ‘gold medicine’ should also be given the same treatment as homeopathy. Would you expect people to approve of it in the same manner?
@IITM 2011, if we do not have conclusive proof of the existence of anything, the wiser way to follow is to not completely depend on it until something is proven. There are other paths with conclusive proof that people can take. While skepticism is certainly good, and healthy debate is encouraged, depending on said unproven thing will always be a futile (or even harmful) activity.
@Common_IITian:
You said two things, One is about homeopathy and the other about possibility of having a religious rationalist.
If you say that homeopathy is not yet proven as a quackery, I’d politely ask you to do a bit of homework on this area.
To be rational, a person needs to have ALL of his actions and thoughts as rational. Hence, if a rational person is religious then it needs to be a “rational religion”. Such a religion will not be based on faith and belief, rather on logic and evidence. If such a religion exists, I have no problem in agreeing to your argument.
However, the religion is “the BELIEF in, or the worship of, a supernatural being, a god or gods”. Hence, no such supernatural being, god, or gods are proven, having such an idea is deemed to be found “irrational”, and so is the person.
@Anwar and WP: Opinions are formed by experiences and not mere thought. Just because you can’t explain something – you don’t debunk it. The fact that you have experienced something is the purest form of truth.
And as far as IIT is concerned – it is only in such institutions that we are open to the fact that we might not know enough instead of strutting away with smug wisdom.
@ Biologist :
I am in no way making a comparison here, just just consider this example
10 years ago if you started speaking about Higgs Bosons, people would have laughed you off. A couple hundred years ago, if you talked about gravity people would have killed you. New things are uncovered with time in Science and it MAY (not sure) happen that homeopathy might work too (probably with a bit of fine tuning).
I remember reading somewhere that even traces of certain molecules can cause a change in the hydrogen bonding pattern in water, however it is not my field and hence I shall refrain from validating this point
Also I came across certain statistical evidence that homeopathy seems to work, about 28% more than case of no medicine, again I don’t want to debate on which report is correct because it is not my field
I am no fan of homeopathy and I frankly dont care if it is true or not. What irritated me was the way in which the speaker was trying to impose his thoughts on others without CONCLUSIVE proof, and tried to extend that to everything. I have reiterated this point many times and I think we should leave it at that.
@ Biologist :
I am in no way making a comparison here, just just consider this example
10 years ago if you started speaking about Higgs Bosons, people would have laughed you off. A couple hundred years ago, if you talked about gravity people would have killed you. New things are uncovered with time in Science and it MAY (not sure) happen that homeopathy might work too (probably with a bit of fine tuning).
I am no fan of homeopathy and I frankly dont care if it is true or not. What irritated me was the way in which the speaker was trying to impose his thoughts on others without CONCLUSIVE proof, and tried to extend that to everything. I have reiterated this point many times and I think we should leave it at that.
@Common_IITian, pardon me, but the faction which claims that homeopathy is fraudulent has already proven its side. There are no tests to ascertain whether homeopathy works, and it’s simple enough to prove that homeopathic medicine, is in fact, just water. Yes, it has been proven that simple water isn’t enough to cure most diseases. That’s as good as not treating the disease at all. If you are doing something that doesn’t cause any effect on the human body, and the body gets cured on its own, you call that homeopathic medicine and claim it treated the patient. That’s precisely what you’re doing. There is nothing here to have an ‘open mind’ about. There is no research done to prove that homeopathy works. I can invent a new type of medicine tomorrow, say, I call it the ‘golden cure’. I’ll start selling water which has had contact with gold for a few days as a ‘wonder medicine’ and ask people to come forward and prove me wrong. They will not be able to prove that it does not work, because, (I cannot stress this enough) it’s simple water! In essence, it is the same thing as homeopathic medicine. I hope you get my point.
@ biologist, Javali
I made it very clear that I don’t advocate nor disapprove of homeopathy. The claim by either factions has not yet been validated, hence my limited point was that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
When any topic is in the grey area, it is customary to keep ones opinions to himself. If preached on a mass platform will only lead to baseless and useless arguments.
I came here mainly to point out that one need not be an atheist to be a rationalist. A religious person or an agnostic can have rational thoughts and can be pioneers in science and technology. Again I am reiterating,
Religious / Agnostic != Superstitious
Fellow Indians, here’s a small dose of advice:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/plausibility-test-homeopathic-medicine
You will need intelligence combined with elementary knowledge of molecular chemistry and mathematics (which are not myths) to understand this. Pardon me if you’re too dumb to get this.
@Common_IITian
Homeopathy has been conclusively debunked time and again. The fact that you nothing about this makes you the arrogant one. For starters you can watch this BBC documentary where a skeptic pledges $1 million dollars of his money to anyone who can scientifically prove that homeopathy works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhmG97lYog
[Spoiler alert: he keeps his money]
@Biologist: You nailed it.
One need to know a bit of biology to evaluate the claims of cure. Even if one does not have that, Homeopathy is a league way down. You just need a bit of common sense and less belief in “spirits” to understand that.
Let us look at what Homeopathy says:
Axiom 1. Dilution increases the potency of the drug.
Axiom 2. Like cures like.
The argument, based on both logical reasoning and statistics is that, this claim is NONSENSE. Not treating a disease at all has the same (or even better) probability than treating with Homeopathy. This is proven. So the comment made by the person is also true in some sense. i.e controlling for placebo effect, there is no chance for a Homeopathic cure, any more than no medicine. So QED!
@Common_IITian, you do realize that homeopathic research cannot be conducted. No experiments can ever be performed to prove the effectiveness of homeopathy, because all it involves is normal water
I’m not kidding. I am a BT student working on cancer drugs. As a side interest, I have tried looking up several papers about homeopathy. I can find no experiments, other than statistical ones, which prove that homeopathy works. After a while, I figured out why. Because, in essence, it’s just normal water! None of the chemical tests that we perform can ever be used to prove homeopathy. The only tests that can be performed are empirical in nature, and I bet you can find similar results in patients with absolutely no treatment at all. The body tends to cure a lot of diseases on it’s own. Assuming that water has some kind of ‘memory’ and that it can cure diseases like that is just absurd. You need to ingest a few thousand gallons of homeopathic medicine just to ingest one molecule of the actual medicine. Homeopathy is just an ‘arcane’ form of medicine, based on ancient cures which do not work. Like exposing water to moonlight and then drinking it, or some sort of stuff like that.
On the issue of homeopathy, if one has an open and a curious mind he should take up a research project on it and see if it actually works or not. It is the arrogance of these so called “rational” thinkers that prevents people from even working on homeopathy.
Work with an open mind and either prove it or disprove it to end the matter then and there, if you (refers to whoever is in some field where they can do research on homeopathy) can’t find the time or need to do the required research then you have absolutely NO right to debunk it.
Heck, half the time my sour throats don’t get cured by Allopathic medicine, however based on that I don’t complain that Allopathy is just humbug (for all we know, it could have been the fault of the Insti doctor). I hope the “rational” people understand the fallacy in their arguments.
LSG : I have used Homeopathy and it has worked for me
NN : I have not used homeopathy and I am healthy.
Me : Facepalm..
Basic concepts first, A => B does not mean not(A) => not(B).
ex : IITian => smart, hadworking (generally speaking, no exceptions) does not mean
not IITian => not smart.
Superstition => Religious (generally) but
Religious does not imply superstitious. There is a large middle ground where one can believe in Karma and still be rational (it however requires an open mind)
It is a matter of shame that such a discussion even took place at our institution that prides itself as being a premier technological institution. When a professor and alumni of IITM lends his support to claims of miracles being performed by so-called ‘godmen’, we know something is going wrong with the way we are teaching/learning the scientific method. While I’m all for keeping an open mind, I’d like to remind the most respected Dean of Students that belief in something without subjecting it to the test of rational thought is enshrouding oneself in a veil of ignorance and ignorance is simply not the same as the absence of omniscience.
Thanks for reporting the event as it were. The Hindu’s coverage did not include the interesting bits that happened towards the end.
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